Latest California Healthline Stories
CalHIPSO Still Has ARRA Health IT Money To Spend
More and more primary care providers are ditching their file folders and moving into the era of electronic health records, a trend marked by a milestone achievement in California and highlighted this week in Washington.
“Five or 10 years ago, it was a question of whether or not a provider would adopt electronic patient records; today it’s a question of when they will adopt it,” said Speranza Avram, executive director of the California Health Information Partnership and Services Organization.
Her Oakland-based organization announced last week it has enrolled more than 6,187 health care providers, mainly community health centers and small medical practices, in programs designed to assist transition to EHRs. The programs, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, pay for consultants in regional extension centers across California to provide medical practices with training in implementing electronic patient record-keeping.
New Location for Patient Advocate and DMHC
The Legislature on Friday approved AB 922 by Bill Monning (D-Carmel), which expands the work of the Office of the Patient Advocate, providing a single source to help people with all of their health insurance questions when major health care reform changes come into play in 2014.
The bill raised some eyebrows with a late amendment, one that moves the Department of Managed Health Care to a different agency.
The question of where the Patient Advocate position would be housed is politically charged. Originally established in the Business, Transportation and Housing agency, with its expanded role in the Affordable Care Act, OPA clearly needed to be more closely allied with a government agency that deals with the health care reform law.
Legislature Passes Healthy Families Money, Mulls DMHC Move
Among the raft of bills that floated through the Legislature in the final days of session were two big health-related ones:
• The Assembly, after trying and failing by one vote to pass ABX1 21 by Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills), yesterday took up the measure again and this time passed it, 61-9; and
• An Assembly bill, AB 922 by Bill Monning (D-Carmel), is designed to expand and move the Office of the Patient Advocate. It took on an amendment that also moves its parent agency, the Department of Managed Health Care. Those agencies currently reside under the Department of Business, Transportation and Housing.
Healthy Families Falls One Vote Short — For Now
No one voted against it, but the bill to fund the Healthy Families program still failed in the Assembly.
ABX1 21 by Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills) passed a Senate vote, and could still come up for a re-vote in the Assembly today.
The current legislative session ends tomorrow.
Bill To Create Basic Health Program Delayed
The two biggest health care bills this year will have to wait till next year.
First it was AB 52, the bill to regulate health insurance rate hikes, that did not make it out of appropriations committee, and will wait till 2012 to be heard again. And now it’s SB 703 by Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), which would establish a Basic Health Program in California.
“It’s official now, it is a two-year bill,” according to John Ramey, executive director of Local Health Plans of California.
Finance May Look at Continuing Costs Left by ADHC
Senate members at a budget subcommittee hearing on Friday raised the notion of involving the Department of Finance in tracking the costs involved in eliminating adult day health care as a Medi-Cal benefit.
The state is scheduled to end the ADHC benefit on Dec. 1.
The deadline was extended by the Department of Health Care Services from its original elimination date of Sept. 1. The extra three months are designed to give the department time to move roughly 36,000 ADHC patients to alternative services, and to conduct health assessments of those patients to determine exactly what those services will be.
Committees Move Host of Bills, Including Rate Regulation
The Senate and Assembly appropriations committees moved fast and furiously yesterday, sending a range of health-related bills out of committee and onto the legislative floor.
That includes the most controversial item on either docket, AB 52 by Assembly members Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), which would authorize the state to regulate health insurance rates.
In other news, the state controller yesterday reiterated his strong request to the Department of Health Care Services to back off from expanding a relationship with a provider of ADHC-like services, because he says that provider owes the state $339 million. Details are further below.
DHCS Director Confirmed by Rules Committee
Yesterday’s confirmation hearing to make Toby Douglas the director of the Department of Health Care Services — a job he currently holds by appointment — may have summed up the job itself.
On one level, it was a bright moment for Douglas, with people from all areas of the health care world applauding him for his strong leadership, accessibility, cooperation and depth of knowledge. And at the same time, Douglas was grilled at length over his department’s transition plan for the roughly 35,000 beneficiaries of the adult day health care program.
Douglas was unanimously confirmed by the Senate Rules Committee on a 5-0 vote.
Committee Chair Asks for Four-Month Delay of ADHC Elimination
Assembly member Mariko Yamada (D-Davis) called yesterday for a temporary delay of the scheduled Dec. 1 elimination date for adult day services as a Medi-Cal benefit. She wants that date to be extended to Mar. 31.
Yamada, chair of the Assembly Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, said the state’s transition plan moves too quickly for the large scope of the changes it’s undertaking involving a vulnerable population. She and other legislators have serious concerns about the rapid time frame, and a number of them have signed the request for delay, according to Yamada.
The state Department of Health Care Services is trying to shift services for 36,000 elderly and disabled ADHC patients by Dec. 1. That includes an effort to move most of those recipients into managed care programs by Oct. 1, so those managed care plans can conduct assessments on many of those patients and make sure their services are in place before the Dec. 1 benefit cut-off date.
Sacramento Event, Physician Highlight CCS Program
Assembly member Richard Pan (D-Natomas), a primary care physician, has been advocating pretty strongly for specialists and for the state’s children who benefit from their care.
Last week, physicians and patients gathered at a clinic in Sacramento to promote Pan’s AB 301, which would extend the deadline for funding the California Children’s Services program (CCS) by about four years.
The CCS program ensures access to specialists for about 185,000 children with severe and chronic health conditions in California.